Re: The poisoned tree, was Re: Argument From Authority

From: Damien Broderick (d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Fri Aug 17 2001 - 19:33:43 MDT


At 07:41 AM 8/17/01 -0700, Mike Butler wrote:

>...I take it, then. that "right, for the wrong reasons" doesn't
>exist in your way of thinking? Fruit of the poisoned tree, and all that?

>In other words, if a hardcore creationist claims that Newtonian mechanics
is due
>to the peculiar psychology of angels pushing planets around, is he
incapable of
>producing correct calculations using G*M1*M2/r^2 ?

But why should you *care* what he says that's congruent with the common
stock of [provisionally accepted and publicly corroborated] knowledge about
the world? You can get that nourishment from many less polluted streams,
and you won't need to spend so much effort waiting for the sly trickery to
be infiltrated in with it. Of course, compensating for, and laughing at,
sly trickery is fun, up to a point, and good for your immune system, as you
say.

Damien Broderick



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